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He said the obsession with the lowest bidder had led to the collapse of companies like GHA in Wrexham and Padarn Bus in Gwynedd who were undercutting rivals but then found themselves unable to provide a service for the tender price.

This led to corners being cut and Mr Owens said this was damaging the confidence people had in the sector.

He said Alpine would always put compliance ahead of price so he could “sleep at night”.

Chris Owens is managing director of Alpine Travel

Talking about the industry, he said: “We are a Cinderella industry and there is no perceived value in us as a sector, and yet we are always a fall back.

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Mr Owens, 52, said: “Before deregulation in 1980 firms had to get a licence to run coach trips and part of that is they wanted to know how much you would charge.

"If it wasn’t enough they would insist on a price level on which you could afford to run something and make a profit. It goes completely against modern day anti-competitive practices but actually it protected the industry.

Alpine Travel in Llandudno

“Recently there has been Stagecoach and Virgin Trains at the public accounts committee saying they can’t make money on the East Coast Line. But they were willing tenders and then they turn around and say they can’t make money out of it.

“The whole business process in the UK is a bit broken. It is all about driving price down and not quality up.”

The company saw where the competition and price battle on bus routes was taking that part of the industry and sold Alpine Bus Services to Crosville Wales in 1995 to focus on coach travel.

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Mr Owens says the result of this battle is firms going against the wall.

He said: “We have seen GHA grow into the largest private bus operator in Wales and then go bust. They were aggressive and went after every tender and undercut, undercut, undercut.

GHA coaches (Image: Stacey Oliver)

“They were badly managed and went into receivership in 2016.

“They were under concern for three years prior to this but were still being awarded contracts. It is like Carillion but at a different scale.

“In 2014 Padarn also went under, we lost contracts to Padarn to 2009, these were contracts we had had since 2004. But we lost them because in 2009 they were tendering cheaper than we were in 2004.

Padarn Bus

“We steered away from bus services because people think they can run services for nothing.”

He added: “We carry the most important cargo in the world so compliance is really important.

“With school transport a parent wants to know that our mechanics are inspecting these vehicles, the drivers are compliant, they have licences and the insurance is right. In aviation we take that as a given because we have very strict controls.

“But with buses people have been cutting corners because they are doing things cheaply.

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“We assume checks and measures are in place to make sure people are not doing that but in reality the policeman of the industry is underfunded and not as efficient as they should be and people are slipping through the net.

“Sometimes it is the fear of losing a contract is driving this price cut.

“Corners have been cut and no investment made and local authorities have been educated by these poor performers about what they should be paying.

“Here, we have the right ratio of mechanics to vehicles, compliance offices, finance, manages and supervisors.

"Because we have these people in place it means we carry larger overheads than a lot of our competition, it makes business tight and difficult but I’m not willing to compromise safety and efficiency for price.

Alpine Travel and Jones Holidays

“I’d rather lose a contract than not be able to do it correctly. I want to be able to sleep at night.

“An accident can happen to anybody and the risk is always there, but you can mitigate that. If I ever had to stand up in court or look a parent in the eye if something had gone wrong I want to know in my heart that there was nothing more I could have done, I had not done it cheaply to make a profit.”

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He said he would like to pay staff more but the inconsistency of work can make this difficult.

He added: “This is my biggest regret.

“I find this a tragedy because we employ great, passionate people.

“It breaks my heart the payroll is not stronger. People earn more driving a lorry where they don’t even have to talk to people.

“The salaries aren’t bad and there are great perks but people work very hard for it. Despite this, it is a wonderful industry to work in. I have been sat drinking coffee in Verona, thinking ‘I’m being paid to do this’. It is a good life.”